GANG ATTACK SPAWNS THREATS

The parents of witnesses in the Joey Pymm beating case say they have had to rearrange their lives because of the threats and fear spawned by the tragedy.

Some parents said they have received strange phone calls, and one teen's car tires were slashed.

The pranks may or may not be related to the Sept. 24 beating of Pymm by about 20 members of a gang at a Boca Raton park, the mother of one girl said.

But she's not taking any chances.

"I have to know where she is all the time when that phone rings," the mother said. "I know that they know she was there."

The mother, who asked to remain anonymous, said her daughter got two phone calls in which the caller hissed the name of the gang and then hung up.

Five teens have been arrested and charged with aggravated assault in the case. Another, Aaron "Gator" Hemplepp, 19, was charged with attempted second-degree murder. One of the teens, Fernando Fernandez, 17, also faces weapons charges in connection with a gun that was fired into the air during the melee.

Sheriff's detectives say the defendants and others approached Pymm, 17, who was with friends at a birthday party in South Inlet Park in Boca Raton, and began beating him after he tried to defend a girl they were harassing.

Police say the gang members stomped on Pymm's head and also attacked other teens who tried to drag him away.

This week, Pymm began to emerge from the coma he has been in since the attack.

At a hearing in the case this week, prosecutor Brian Brennan asked Judge Karen Martin to protect the addresses and phone numbers of the witnesses, saying many had received threats from gang members connected to the defendants.

Brennan later said that the father of defendant Joseph Gautier, and maybe even Gautier himself, made phone calls to find out the phone numbers and addresses of the witnesses.

Attorneys for the Sun-Sentinel and The Palm Beach Post asked the judge for time to oppose the motion, and the judge rescheduled the hearing for Monday. The attorneys later withdrew the motion, saying the newspapers made a policy decision not to seek the information.

Brennan on Thursday released witnesses' names to defense attorneys and to the media.

In the meantime, some of the witnesses' parents say the beating has left an indelible wound on their own and their children's psyches.

"Everyone is afraid," said the mother of one girl. "No one sleeps in our house at night. We're constantly after the kids, we drop them off, pick them up. We're living in our own little prison."

The woman said she had to go to the library to pick up books for a report her daughter is working on at school.

"I couldn't let her go to the library by herself," she said.

Another parent of a witness said his neighbor, a girl who also was at the party, had a "traumatic" reaction to the beating. The man said his son has received no threats, but he is concerned about the teen's safety.

"You keep a closer watch, try to make sure they don't go out," he said. "But it's hard to tell an 18-year-old to stay home."

Lynne Malone, the mother of another teen who is on the prosecutors' witness list, said she has tried hard to keep her family life normal.

"I refuse to let these gang people dictate how I'm going to live my life," said Malone, who asked that her name be published.

Still, Malone said she worries about her son and her other children. She said the tires of her son's truck were slashed recently.

"There were three vehicles in the driveway, and they picked his," she said. "I don't want to accuse anybody, but you have to wonder. It's a little frightening. You begin to wonder how far any kind of retaliation might go."

Rene Boone, a counselor advocate with Palm Beach County Victims' Services, said witnesses in a criminal case sometimes go through the same emotions that victims experience.

"They're all victims, in a way," she said. "Even the witnesses are victims."

She said witnesses often experience shock for a while, then go through a period where they can't let go of the event.

Boone said when a person sees a violent act, their sense of security falls away in the same way that it does for victims. In addition, they sometimes feel guilty because they think they could have done something to prevent the crime.

"They do get scared and they don't want to testify sometimes," she said. "We tell them they have to do what is best for them, but without their testimony, the person might walk free."

Boone said that after a short while, some witnesses begin to think something is wrong with them because they haven't yet gotten over the trauma.

"What we do is counsel them to deal with the fear," she said. "We go to court with the people and walk through the whole process with them."